It was represented by "Kosmoid Ltd." plus two other associated companies and existed only a short period of time (1904–1906), but was promoted as a potential major employer in the vicinity of Dumbarton, Scotland.
During negotiations for potential water supplies from Dumbarton, it was subsequently stated that "Kosmoid had taken over the whole of the Dumbuck estate, and intended to cover it with works and dwelling-houses.
[3] At a later session with the Waterworks Committee the same month, it was reported that, according to a conversation with Dr Shiels, "On the low-lying part [of the Dumbuck estate] he spoke of a church, a school, and other such erections ...
In many ways the most secretive of the three operations, the exact purpose of Kosmoid Ltd. was never spelled out except "to operate patents and licences", although Shiels was successful in attracting persons of some significance to both this company and to a (on paper) control group the "Metallurgical Syndicate"; according to Harvie, "the directors of the company were Janes Denny (the Dumbarton shipbuilder and engineer); Alexander Shiels; Charles W. Fulton, of the prosperous Paisley textile firm; George Grandison Millar, a wealthy art publisher; and, at various times, a number of influential ironmasters, engineers and merchants", while The Metallurgical Syndicate was a group of 18 persons, among them Alexander Shiels; G. G. Millar; Charles W. Fulton; Archibald Coats; William Donaldson; Archibald Denny; James Denny; Walter Brock; Peter Coats; and William Coats, with the stated aim of "the commercial development of the products of certain secret processes of manufacture known to Alexander Shiels, known respectively as the Quicksilver Process and the Copper Process, by which quicksilver (i.e., mercury) could be produced from lead and copper from iron."
[12] Meanwhile, again according to Harvie, "between 1903 and 1906 he [Shiels] had signed agreements and a deed of partnership with John Joseph Melville, a self-confessed alchemist who had a life-long career of controversial and scandalous business dealings.
Shiels employed Melville and installed him in the Dumbarton factory, with complete freedom to operate according to their own agreements relating to 'the secret quicksilver process' and without interference from any of the Kosmoid directors.
According to Harvie: The Glasgow architects firm of Dykes and Robertson were busy planning and erecting a number of large buildings on the Dumbuck site.
[15] In 1906 the headquarters of the three companies, previously at 2 addresses in Glasgow, moved on site to Dumbuck House, but the same year, the "directors became more and more nervous in the face of public speculation and demands by Shiels for increased bank loans and overdrafts"[16] and in September 1906, Shiels simply disappeared; it subsequently transpired that he had moved to England, continued his work as a consulting engineer in a different capacity, however by autumn 1907 he suddenly died, collapsing on the platform of Willesden Station and then being removed to his new home in Earl's Barton, Northamptonshire where he died 3 days later.
[19][20] The actual circumstances of manufacture of the initial batch of time recorders is not currently known, although Shiels' success in finding local uptake suggests that they may have been produced at Dumbuck; the later versions manufactured by Rusmoid in London appear to have filled at least a small niche, and turn up intermittently in the world of collectables of modest value, thus keeping that incarnation of the "Kosmoid" name alive, if only as an antique.
[21] Shiels' claim that Kosmoid was manufacturing petrol engines, among many other items, may not have been entirely groundless: the International Motor Exhibition 1906 Catalogue includes a demonstration of a "14-H.P.
Despite the absence of any official declarations of intent, a somewhat breathless article in London's Daily Express newspaper on 6 January 1906 exclaimed: "It is suggested that the real secret of Kosmoid was not the method of making Cuferal, but the transmutation of metals, and declared that such eminent men as Lords Kelvin, Overtoun and Inverclyde, having had ocular demonstration of the manufacture of gold, silver and copper from lead and iron, had become shareholders",[23] notwithstanding that the involvement of those named was a complete fiction.
"[26] It thus seems at least plausible that, in addition to planning to manufacture alchemical silver and gold in limited quantities, Shiels' principal aim as a money making venture was the manufacture of his supposed copper-iron alloy, elsewhere termed Cuferal in his promotional dealings, with which he hoped to revolutionise the industrial world (and might also assist in understanding the rationale for setting up the Tube Works on the same site).
[27][a] Evidence that Shiels was intending to practice industrial scale alchemy in the twentieth century is contained in the goals of the Metallurgical Syndicate; in addition, he was promising to produce his new super-alloy "Cuferal" by a "secret process", he had a strange and highly over-specified building constructed as the "fireproof stores" for unnamed purposes, and he had entered into an agreement with Melville, a self confessed alchemist, to run the most crucial portion of the operation.
"[28]If the novel "The Gold Makers", written as it was by one of his inner circle of investors and generally believed to be based on the Kosmoid affair, is taken to offer a true window onto the type of claims made by Shiels as placed in the mouth of "Dr Dexel", the novel's protagonist (as suggested by Harvie), the involvement of alchemy is more overt, even extending as it does to the book's title.
Attempting to infer the actual process envisaged for the Cuferal production from the above is somewhat tricky, but elsewhere the Dr Dexel character states that the company would only "make as much gold as is necessary for the manufacture of copper, mercury and other metals."
[b] It is not known whether the proposed alchemical nature of the main planned Kosmoid operations was an embarrassment to any of its directors or owners at the time; in parallel, during the early part of the twentieth century numerous discoveries were being made in the physical and chemical sciences including the discovery of X-Rays in the 1890s, the radioactive element Radium in 1898, and more; in addition, explanation of the structure and properties of elements according to atomic theory had not yet occurred, so the transmutation of metals might have seemed plausible, especially with the high demand for copper for use in cables due to the rapid uptake of electrification in the developed world.
[29] One tangible resulting artifact was a 1911 book, ostensibly a novel but clearly a thinly disguised account of the affair at Kosmoid, entitled "The Gold Makers" by George Grandison Millar, former Kosmoid director and Metallurgical Syndicate member, writing under the pseudonym "Nathaniel P. McCoy";[30] in this work the location is transposed to Boston, U.S.A., however the essence of the plot appears to completely parallel the Kosmoid operation, so far as relevant facts are known, in addition also covering earlier episodes in the Doctor's business activities including the operation of two separate nursing homes for wealthy clients (as was the case with Shiels), which the author has no hesitation as declaring to be bogus ventures for the sole purpose of making money.
"[31] Whether Shiels was to some (or even a large) extent a successful confidence trickster, or whether he really believed that he had discovered the secret(s) of transmutation of metals and was thereby about to make not only his own fortune but that of his investors, may perhaps never be known.
[32]Meanwhile, David Harvie's (1986) assessment is somewhat different: The legend has had Shiels fleeing all over the world, pursued by his business enemies; existing in poverty selling patent medicines and, after death, being exhumed and secretly reburied.